


Silence

by Taua



Series: Tumbrl Inspiration [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Death, Desperation, Gen, Swearing, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23140027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taua/pseuds/Taua
Summary: A space ship far in the future is traveling and sees something odd floating out in space. They pick it up and it’s the long dead body of an astronaut that had accidentally been set adrift in space. In the suit are audio recordings of his last days alive. What do those tapes say?
Series: Tumbrl Inspiration [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534382
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Silence

“Hey, what's that on the radar?” Absently fingers tapped down on a small, gently blinking speck on the half-globe placed on the middle of the desk. Whenever the line of the radar ran over the spot, once every few seconds, the speck flashed up brighter as it got nearer to the middle.

“Hmm,” the boy murmured as he grabbed his chin in thought. Cerulean eyes squinted at the shape, but it was too small to properly make out the outline. “Hey Riku, think you can get this on the screen for me?”

From the other side of the small room a boy with silver hair gave a sigh, but rose from his chair regardless. He approached the other boy and glanced down at the radar himself, expression serious as he observed the speck float slowly around.

“That's probably just a rock covered in ice,” Riku responded as he straightened again. “I'm not wasting recourses to check _that_ out. The Captain will have my head.”

“Aww, but Riku!” the other boy whined.

“I said no, Sora.” Sternly Riku crossed his arms before his chest, pointedly looking away.

“What if it's something else?” Sora asked as he pointed at the radar. “See? It kinda looks like a person.”

Riku heaved a sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don't give me that. It's not bigger than a pixel.”

A pout on his lips Sora leaned back on his chair. “Come on! Just a quick tiny teeny glimpse.” He sat up and hung onto Riku's arm as he pushed himself in his field of vision. “It's the last time I'm gonna ask you to do it! _Please_ , Riku!”

Riku merely arched an eyebrow. “Last time, hu? Like _the last_ three times?”

Sora's pout grew a bit larger as he narrowed his eyes. “Alright, here's the deal,” he said as he fell back into his chair. “If it's nothing interesting, I'll never ever ask you to do this for me again.”

“You claim _everything_ is interesting,” Riku countered with a frown. But then Sora gave him his puppy-eyed look, filled with longing and hope and warmth, and eventually he hung his head low with a sigh. “I'm serious. The Captain keeps an eye on us as it is. He's gonna ban us from the bridge.”

“I swear this will be the last time,” Sora whispered, his bottom lip jutting out. “And if it's something boring, I'll give you my dessert for a month, too!” He grabbed Riku's arm again and boosted himself up. “And if the Captain catches us and we're on cleaning duty, I swear I'll cover all the toilets for you! _All_ of them!”

Those big blue eyes were right up in Riku's face as he spoke, staring with wonder and hope, so much so his knees started to feel weak. “Oh fine!” he hissed out before he walked away, his fingers already flying across one of the keyboards.

Satisfied Sora sunk back into his chair with a grin, his mood considerably better. He'd later hack into the system and erase whatever traces their little action left behind. The Captain knew Riku's handwriting when he saw it, but he still thought Sora was too bad in coding to be successful. He'd never suspect him to mess with the records.

It took only a minute or two for Riku to log into one of the outer cameras, the one closest to the object floating close to their spaceship. Concentrated he turned the cam just so, catching the small thing as it slowly drifted passed.

Both of them gasped as the mysterious object appeared on the screen before them.

“Is that...?” Sora whispered as he leaned slightly forward, his mouth hanging open. Quickly Riku zoomed in on the object, the white and characteristic black on top uncannily familiar...

Baffled Riku dropped his hands from the keyboard. Usually he'd think Sora would probably never let it drop how right he had been and how, from then on, they definitely had to check out whatever he ever spotted on the radar. But he was still too shocked by the picture before them to speak or even think.

The object on the radar... had been a spacesuit.

Maybe with somebody _inside_ it.

~*~

  
A couple of minutes later Riku and Sora stood in one of the airlocks leading out of the ship, silently staring at the motionless suit by their feet. They had used one of the grapple arms on the outer shell to drag it inside, however now that they looked down at it they had no idea what to do. Despite working on a spaceship, they were barely four- and fifteen of age; finding a corpse was not something they ever thought they would.

And from the way the suit's limbs remained up and twisted, someone was _definitely_ inside it. The icy chill of space kept the body in shape. Probably it was even conserved enough to see the person's face.

Drawing in a breath Riku crouched down near the head. The helmet had the tainted lens drawn out, blackening the head entirely. The suit was pretty old, good ten years at least, but already one of the models with the chlorophyll-technology which generated an endless amount of air. However the helmet had a dent on one side, maybe from an impact, so the suit might have leaked out whatever air it had in it.

With trembling fingers Riku reached toward the clamps holding the helmet in place.

“What are you doing?!” Sora half-gasped, half-shrieked.

“Aren't you curious...?” Riku asked in return, his hands finally reaching the clamps. He was the braver of them and, although the situation was terrifying and morbid, he really wanted to see who they found.

He knew Sora wanted, too. His silence was enough proof.

With a last, gasping breath, Riku undid the clamps. The airlock released with a quiet hiss; so the suit had been tight after all.

Before his nerves got the better of him, Riku quickly tugged the helmet away – and dropped the helmet with a startled cry before he scrambled away, eyes wide in horror.

In contrast, Sora approached the body and knelt down next to it, his eyes filled with bottomless sadness and compassion.

The face beneath the helmet had a creepy resemblance to Sora.

The teen in the suit looked a little older, maybe four or five years. Where Sora had chestnut-brown hair his was black, the lights on the corridor reflecting in a dull blue on it. His cheeks had sunk in and his lips were cracked, the eyes closed as if he were asleep. The teen's skin was so pale it looked white almost, but that might have been from the cold temperatures outside. Or maybe Sora would turn just as pale after a few years on the spaceship, away from the sunlight which tanned his skin.

“I wonder what happened,” Sora whispered as he stared at the other boy. His voice had lost all its cheer and excitement upon their discovery, and really, Riku admired how he managed to still remain so calm. After the first glance he'd been so freaked out he fucking _screamed_.

However seeing Sora so distraught... left an aching in his chest.

Drawing in a steadying breath Riku crawled closer to them and picked up the helmet again. If he remembered right, there should be... there.

With nibble fingers he reached into the helmet and removed a small crystal, edgy and shorter than his pinky, but it looked intact. “Maybe the records will show,” he whispered as he rose, a small console emerging from the wall once he swiped his hand over it. “Back then the crystals only recorded sounds, but it might have answers anyway.” He laid the crystal down on the console, a round shape lighting up right beneath it as the computer downloaded the information.

Once it was done, Riku turned his head enough to face Sora. “This might be... intense,” he said, his stomach in knots at the thought. Maybe the teen had died upon the impact on his helmet, but judging from the cracked lips he probably dehydrated instead. In any case – they were about to hear the audio of his last moments, maybe even last days alive.

“You ready?” Riku asked, voice not louder than a whisper, and after a while Sora nodded.

~*~

“Hello? Test, test, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can.”

A faint chuckle. “Alright. Now let's follow protocol.”

“Ugh. That shit's _boring_.”

“And also protocol.”

A heavy sigh. “Alright.”

“Stop rolling your eyes.” A pause. “Hey! Rude! Also, middle-finger is so 20th Century.”

Another chuckle, darker than the first. “Alright. Vanitas Osmet, ID 9012010. Vitals from the suit are... as they should. About to head out and do some repairs on the outer shell after Venty-Wendy drove us into a meteoroid sho-”

“Unneeded information,” the other voice cut in. “I'm going to delete that part from the log later. Now hurry up and get the job done; I see some eruptions coming our way.”

“Yeah, I saw those before. Not a problem as long as you keep the ship between me and the impact.”

“Don't worry, I got you.”

A mechanical voice came up. “Lock dislodged. Gravity deactivating.”

“Here we go~o. I'm keeping the magnets out on my boots. Gonna reach the crack faster that way.”

“Alright. Be careful though.” A short pause. “You could use them, you know. With the new system the suit produces it's own air, so you have all the time in the world.”

“I've never been the patient type. Besides,” a short, dark chuckle rumbled and the voice pitched deeper, “No risk, no fun.”

“Following _that_ advice got the shield cracked in the first place.”

“Nah. You suck at navigating, that's all.” Silence. “Alright, just reached the crack. Gonna have that welded in no time.”

“Good to hear.” A low melody, hummed deep in a throat. “Wow... I can see a group of ice coming our way. The reflection looks _amazing_. Turn around if you have the chance.”

“If we all got our head stuck in the stars like you, we'd have long since crashed.” Another pause, this time of a few minutes. “Alright, I'm almost done with the job.”

“Want me to reel you in then?”

“Nah. Unlike _some_ people, I don't get motion sick.”

“Har, har. Very funny.” The voice turned into a murmur. “As if you _didn't_ puke into your suit the first time.”

“Frankly, I didn't. First rule for spacewalks – make sure to be uninebriational.”

“Oh, thanks for the tip.”

“... There. All sealed and smooth as a baby's bottom. I'm deactivating the magnets and head back in.”

“Alright. Don't float too far though; the ice is closer than expected.”

“Yes, _mom_.” A light chuckle. “Geeze. You hang out too much around Aqua. I mean, I get it; she got some fine curves...”

“Ew! Vanitas!”

The chuckle turned into a cackle. “You're so easy to mess with. I'm not judging you though; Terra got quite some abs, man. And those guns-”

“Vanitas! Watch-”

A loud bang, followed by a pained groan.

The silence afterward stretched on and on...

“Shit, that was close. Couldn't you have said something sooner?” A pause. “Hello? Ventus? Did you turn off the- Oh _shit_! My line tore!” Gasping, heavy breathing, rustle. “Fuck, I'm drifting off! Ventus, I need you to grapple me.”

Silence.

“Alright, you moron turned the mic on mute. Stop fumbling with it and get to the grapple, I'm almost out of range.”

More silence.

“Jesus Christ, Ventus, if you're _too dense_ to find the controls call for fucking Terra or Aqua. The eruption is about to hit and I'm floating into its line.”

Silence.

“Okay it's getting fucking close at this point. You can sass me about my sexual comments _later_. Now just get the _fucking grapple arm_ and pull me back in!”

Silence.

“Alright you little shit, you wanted to teach me a lesson? _I got it._ Now pull me fucking back, I'm almost out of range.”

More silence. The breathing turned into a raged panting.

“Ventus. The solar eruption is almost here. I can _fucking see it_ already.” A distressed chuckle. “Come on, you wouldn't leave me out here to die, would you? You wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Silence.

“Ventus...?”

Silence.

“Ventus?! Hello?! Is my mic even working?”

Gasping, panting. “Alright. Calm down. Maybe I can-”

An interference. A scream.

“Fuck! Mayday! Mayday! The eruption send me spinning! I can't see the ship any- _argh_!”

Devastating silence.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” Rustling, shifting. “Where's the fucking ship?! Goddamn it...!” Panting. “Ah, there. Jesus Christ.”

Silence.

“Yeah, that's right. Get the engine running. Fucking Ventus and his slow reflexes... I'm gonna fuck him up once I'm back, I swear-”

A gasp.

“No. No, no, _fuck_ _ **no**_! That's the wrong direction! Hey!” Rapid rustling. “I'm here! You fucking _idiots_ , the other fucking way! What the fucking hell- oh shit.” A pause. “It's gone. The _fucking_ chip is _fucking_ gone.”

Heavy panting.

“Shit. This is bad. Hey! Heeey!!! Come back, I'm _here_!!!” More rustling. “This piece of shit has to have a beacon. A light. Fucking _something_!”

Silence.

“Oh God please. Turn around. The flow of the eruption was the other way, you fucking idiots must have realized that.”

Silence. For minutes, adding up to an hour.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Find the damn chip, see I'm not attached to it, and do the fucking _math_.”

Devastating silence.

“Fuck me... My balls are freezing off.”

Silence.

“Yeah, take your sweet time, you _fuckers_. I'm gonna fucking piss in the water tank for this, I swear.”

Silence.

“Alright. I'm also gonna ditch all your shit in the trashlock. You motherfuckers can go pick it up in space then! Until you freeze to fucking _death_!”

Silence.

“Shit. Come on. You gotta find me eventually.”

Silence.

“... This can't be the end. I got a fucking spacesuit with _endless_ air supply. That doesn't mean you can _chill_ on your search! Assholes! Motherfuckers! I fucking hate you for this!!!”

Silence.

“Fuck, it's cold.”

Silence.

“Stay calm... They are so adamant about being nice people, they will find you eventually... They share one braincell among themselves; of course it's gonna take a while for them to find you. Besides, it hasn't been _that_ long, right? … Hard to judge time out here. You just _feel_ like it's been long.”

Silence.

“Just – take a nap. Yeah. Close your eyes for a bit. Time's gonna pass faster that way.”

Silence.

A groan and a yawn. “Ugh. Ventus, you idiot, why did you lower the room tempera... Huh? What...?” A startled gasp. “Fuck, it wasn't a dream? How long has it be- _are you kidding me?!_ _ **Sixteen hours**_ _?!_ ”

Frantic panting breaking the silence.

“This can't be happening. This fucking can't be happening. No. _No!_ I'm _not_ gonna _die_ like _this_! Fuck!”

Silence.

A sigh. “Oh, low on water. You don't say. I thought I was imagining my thirst. _Thank you_.”

Silence.

“Fuck... This is it, isn't it?” A strained sob. A watery chuckle. “Starving in space. Who'd have thought that was a thing.” A chocked sob, a sniffle. “G-good thing we made suits with chlorophyll, huh? It's gonna save thousands of astronauts. No more _dying_ in space.” The laugh turned hysteric, desperate, and broke into a mush of sobs and whimpers.

“Congratulations, Vanitas. You're gonna be in the history books after all – as the first unlucky bastard who died of thirst in fucking space.” A pause. “That is, if anyone ever finds your body. Otherwise you're just gonna be one of the many other casualties.” A dry chuckle. “Fuck. I wish I got smashed by a rock actually. Surely it would have been less of a torture.”

Silence.

“Great. _Great_ _job_ , Vanitas. Of fucking course you lost your tools, too. As if you'd be granted the chance to stab a hole in your fucking suit and actually die a fast death. But nope, you're gonna slowly starve instead. Feel how your fucking mouth gets drier by the hour and your fuckings lips crack from dehydration.”

Silence.

“Who knows. Maybe one day someone will find your body and this records. Any last words you want to share with the world, Mister Osmet?”

Silence.

“Actually, yeah. You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you _all_. By the end of the fucking day, you're alone in this universe. Getting out here was the worst decision of my fucking life. I should have never trusted anyone with my life, least of all the motherfuckers in my crew. I should have stayed on fucking planet earth and spent an insignificant life like billion others. Aiming to be more, to do something _more important_ , has been a fucking mistake. Fuck the stars, fuck the space, _fuck my fucking life_.” A pause. “Fuck Ventus. Fuck you for dragging me out here with you. If it wasn't for you, I'd be growing crops with my momma and cuddle my cats. Fuck you and your enthusiasm for the stars. Fuck you for letting me believe, _for just a second_ , that I could actually be more than a farmer's boy.”

Silence.

“You said I'm great enough to make it into history books. You said we could do it, go out there and make life-changing discoveries. Fuck you, you piece of shit. I actually believed you there! I thought, yeah, Vanitas Osmet, that's a name people are going to remember. I thought I could be a hero people acknowledged and looked up to. And what that do for me? Those hopes, those dreams?”

Silence.

“I'm gonna fucking die in fucking space. Not even old enough to be drinking yet. Fuck, Ventus, I should have at least fucked you at some point. At least I could say I didn't die as a fucking virgin then. You fucking asshole. I hate you.”

Silence... broken by a desperate sob.

“I... don't want to die...!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Saw the prompt and dishes this out in about... 3 hours I think?  
> Didn't even proofread it lol. 
> 
> Regards,  
> -T


End file.
